Age: 13
-BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP-
Blinking awake with bleary eyes, I glared at my phone ringing with the 6:30 alarm on the table on the opposite side of the room.
Past me was a real asshole.
For the next few minutes I laid there, wishing I could set it on fire with my gaze. Alas, it remained untouched, and eventually went on to snooze. After a few more minutes I pushed away the covers, shivering in the cold.
Well, not really cold cold, it was only late autumn. But by way of comparison to being underneath the blankets, it was like being hit in the face by a snowstorm.
And that statement included only the slightest bit of exaggeration. You'd think that growing up right on the edge of the Arctic Circle would make one used to the cold, but familiarity only breeds contempt.
The first thing that greeted me beyond the blankets was Ryuko's face, looking sternly down at me. Behind my sister, her dragon form roared triumphantly, smoke streaming from her maw.
The rest of my room was similarly covered in posters, mostly of Ryukyu but with a couple of All-Might and other cool heroes that had caught my interest added to the mixture. At first, I'd begun decorating my room that way because I thought it was cool.
Then I realized Ryuko was embarrassed by seeing her own merchandise and, well, after that it was my sacred duty as her sibling to plaster them everywhere.
That aside my room was fairly normal, with my bed in the corner, a couple of bookcases and cabinets, and two tables. One for schoolwork, the other for my hobby. Painting miniatures had been a passion of mine once, and I'd taken to it again. A couple of models in varying stages of assembly and painting were strewn around the table, with a large robot-like figurine dominating the crowd.
A lot of the companies that had made these things had gone extinct in the years since the post-Quirk societal upheaval, their trademarks consigned to the public domain. Still, with 3D printing you could get them for pretty cheap, if you knew where to look. And the new model lines that had sprung up since weren't half-bad either.
With most forms of entertainment, it was a similar story. Some of the bigger media was still around, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Pokemon, Mickey Mouse, Dragon Ball, LEGO, Transformers, that sort of thing. But a lot of things had also fallen by the wayside, forgotten by time. Game of Thrones, Avatar, Naruto, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and others, franchises once so huge you could learn their entire plots through cultural osmosis, gone forever or relegated to an extremely obscure following.
More than once I'd received weird looks, referencing things that nobody had thought relevant in over a century.
With lethargic movements I dragged myself out the door and towards the bathroom. Common wisdom is that cold showers help you wake up in the morning, but frankly, fuck cold showers. The way you do it is with water just short of scalding.
I simply closed my eyes, leaned my back against the shower stall and relaxed in the all-encompassing warmth. I missed regular access to a sauna, but this was the next best thing I could do.
Frankly if it was up to me I would've stayed there basking in the hot water indefinitely, but eventually somebody would come by and drag me out. Drying myself with a towel, I made my way back to my room, moderately more energized than before.
I made myself ready for the day, pulling on the grey and black uniform of my middle school, carefully sliding it over my horns. I hated the damn thing, but it was something I simply had to bear.
After that I dragged myself to the kitchen and flopped onto a chair. A glance at the clock told me it was 7:00, which meant that I'd already used up half of the time that I allocated to the morning activities before leaving for school. With a sigh I put on some toast and rummaged around the closet for toppings. Dad had already left for work and Mom wouldn't wake up for another hour, which meant I had the house to myself. Ryuko had moved out after she started her own Pro-Hero agency three years ago- just down the street, but still. It just wasn't the same.
After breakfast I made my way to the bathroom, grabbing a brush and began to clean my teeth. The sight that greeted me in the mirror was, well, me. Me for the last thirteen years. Tall for my age, built like a beanpole. White hair, short and messy, maintenance kept to a minimum. Pale skin, not exactly well cared-for. Red eyes, with bags under them from chronic lack of sleep.
It hadn't really been a conscious decision, to skim on the sleeping hours, but it had a nasty tendency to happen anyway. There was just so much to do.
School took most of the day, and homework another large chunk. It was easy stuff for the most part, but even with my advantages I had to put in effort to maintain my near-perfect grades.
Then there was training. That had been a natural evolution of my habit of roaming the forest, once simple exploration and playing around had started to lose their once seemingly limitless charm.
Most of the stuff that I could do by myself was pretty limited- I'd gotten the talking-to of a lifetime once already when I hadn't been looking where I was going and smashed straight through a pine tree. That was the day I learned that trees were actually worth a fair amount of money, and even in a public forest you could get fined for up to tens of thousands of yen.
So typically I just ran laps and pushed a loose boulder around until I was too tired to continue, and then just enjoyed the peace and quiet. The real fun began when I could badger Ryuko into giving up some of her precious free time to train with me. She still had half a meter on me in our dragon forms, but it was close enough that there was an actual point to sparring now.
That took another significant chunk of my time. Aside from chores and other miscellaneous stuff, I also had the everpresent distraction of the internet.
Ever since my eighth birthday, I'd had free access to the internet. Well, they installed one of those blocker things that made it so that I couldn't access porn and so on, but still.
There was just so damn much to catch up on. I'd always been a fan of history, and there were over a hundred years worth of it to catch up on.
I hungrily devoured every scrap of knowledge I could find.
But at the same time, I found that in the end, surprisingly little had happened. The world order had largely remained the same. The maps were almost unchanged. I suppose Quirks would account for a reduction in open warfare, but still, over a hundred years? With a major, global societal upheaval?
It was odd.
Technology had also stagnated. Certainly, holograms and robots had advanced, but they were still expensive, far outside the reach of the ordinary customer. Day-to-day life hadn't changed much in the years since my time. There'd been a manned mission to Mars, and a couple more to the Moon, but nothing groundbreaking.
Still, with the internet having been around for so long, there were digital mountains of material to go through. Like holy shit, even back in my time, when the internet had only been around for little more than a couple of decades at most depending on where you start counting, there was already so much fanfiction around that you physically couldn't read it all. Yeah, a lot of the data had been lost over the years, oftentimes simply because people weren't maintaining the servers anymore, and the rate of production had dropped significantly and only picked up again in the last couple decades, but even so, we're talking well over a hundred years. And if you're going to give me free, unlimited access to it all?
Hell yeah I was getting myself lost in that.
And that's not even getting to all the books, anime, comics, manga, movies, and everything else under the sun that's come out since.
But it did occasionally cost me the night's sleep because I just didn't have it in me to put down a good story after starting on it.
After brushing my teeth, it was time to leave for school. Himeji Middle School was a middle-of-the-ground type of school, not known for being particularly elite, nor one of the underfunded schools in the worse parts of the city. It was simply the closest to where we lived, so it was the one I went to.
-------
Day to day school life itself was a lot more tolerable these days, compared to when I'd started. The bullying had abated after I started to hang out with Yui, the bullies less enthused to take action with a witness present. And when Ryuko had started her own Pro-Hero agency, it had quickly dropped off altogether. Being middlingly famous had its own advantages.
However, as is often the case in life, one kind of drama falls away only to be replaced by another. Going through pre-teen years once more was a trip, with its own set of challenges.
One of those challenges was the concept of schoolyard crushes. Now, getting crushes was nothing new to me. I had long since mastered the triple-R strategy: Repression, Repression and Repression.
If you ignore it it will eventually go away.
No, what nothing had prepared me for was other people expressing crushes on me. Which was how we ended up with situations such as this one.
"No. Absolutely not. No."
The boy's lower chin started to wobble ever so slightly, a glint of wetness appearing in the corner of his eye.
"No. Not interested. No. Not in a million years. No."
"You didn't have to go that far." Yui noted from her position by the wall, as the boy got out of earshot. "It's just a schoolyard crush. It doesn't have to mean anything."
I sighed and leaned against the wall. I knew that. Of course I knew that I should let them down gently. That I was being a piece of shit. I just…
Going through puberty again was bad enough, not to mention doing it on the opposite end of the aisle this time. I hadn't so much as begun sorting out my own issues, let alone thinking of adding a relationship on top of that.
Yeah no. I wasn't interested. I didn't want to have anything to do with it. I didn't even want to think about it. So I lashed out, usually more than what was called for, more than I'd meant to.
"Why does this keep happening?"
"Your sister is the tenth-ranked Hero." Yui shrugged. "Fame can substitute for looks."
"Are you implying I'm ugly?"
"No. I'm saying that you could look ugly and this would still happen. You're perfectly... okay."
"Gee, thanks."
"Suck it up, you're average. Maybe a little plain."
"Wow Yui, way to inspire confidence."
"Stop being melodramatic. This is only the second time this has happened."
Rude.
But also not entirely wrong.
Nothing more to say, we fell into silence once again. The comfortable quiet was one of the cornerstones of our friendship, such as it was, alongside automatic partners for group projects, watching each other's back in the hallways and having somebody to complain to.
The recess ended soon after, and we filed inside. Our homeroom was exactly the same as all the others, a clean, dull room with five rows of six desks for the students and a proper work table for the teacher.
Katsuke Fujiwara was the current substitute, our regular homeroom teacher having fallen ill a couple months ago and we'd been cycling through temporary subs ever since. He was a tall and wiry man with brown hair, in his mid-twenties. His appearance was always disheveled and he had the kind of look like he wanted to be anywhere else but here. That reflected in his work, given how little he seemed to care for actually teaching, and he was late or even missing entirely rather frequently. Despite that the student base seemed to like him, though I suspected that was mainly because he didn't actually care to check homework or make sure people weren't using phones during class.
"Morning, class." Without waiting for the reply, he pressed on. "Today we'll be having one-on-one discussions regarding your future careers."
The man's tone conveyed quite clearly his disdain for the idea, but he went on.
"I will be calling you one by one to the neighbouring classroom. The rest of you, study math. Adachi, you're first."
With that, he slipped out the door, the student in question rising from her seat and following in his wake. Almost as soon as the door closed, chatter erupted across the class.
Some were expressing disapproval over Fujiwara's conduct, hoping that we'd be assigned a proper teacher soon. Others were glad for the chance to slack off. The overwhelmed class president tried to get the class to quiet down, but it seemed to be a lost cause.
At the back of the classroom, Yui and I began studying in silence, ignoring the ruckus. Well, she studied, I languished in boredom while occasionally helping her. Middle School math was easy.
As time passed the class filtered in and out the door in alphabetic order. It seemed like Fujiwara was working through the list at rapid pace, given that the period hadn't even reached the halfway mark by the time he reached "T".
I entered the empty classroom, closing the door behind myself. Fujiwara lounged on the teacher's chair, while a single chair had been dragged before his desk, which I sat down in.
"Well then, let's start." He leaned back, sounding utterly bored with life as he glanced down at the papers in front of him. "Ryuuzaki Tatsuma. Highest grades in the school, spotless record. You could go for anything you wanted."
He glanced down at the papers again. "Well, maybe not a translator. So, what's your dream career?"
I maintained my carefully neutral expression, but inwardly I bristled at his tone.
"Pro-Hero."
"Of course. Just like everyone else…"
He trailed off and glanced down at the papers again, blinking. His expression shifted, at first in surprise before turning sour.
"...Tatsuma. You're Ryukyu's sister, aren't you?"
I was surprised he didn't know of it already, half the school certainly seemed to. I replied with a restrained nod, and the man grimaced.
"And let me guess, you want to be a Hero just like her?"
I was starting to get a little bit uncomfortable with the way he was acting, but nodded again.
"Figures."
The smart thing there would probably have been to stay quiet and let it pass. Avoid the confrontation.
Ordinarily I probably would've done exactly that. However, something made me open my mouth. Perhaps it was his attitude. Perhaps it was a sudden, freak rush of impudence.
Or perhaps it was just the way he sneered when he said my sister's Hero name.
"Is something the matter?"
Fujiwara blinked, seemingly not having expected to be talked back to.
"Oh, nothing at all. Just wondering why."
"What?"
"Why? Why become a Hero?"
My thought process came to a screeching halt. Whatever I'd been expecting out of him, it wasn't that.
"I..." I trailed off, suddenly unsure of what to say.
"You know, people like you disgust me."
Excuse me?
With great difficulty I swallowed the first response that came to mind, then the second and, after a brief internal debate, even the third.
"What do you mean?"
"Hero families." Fujiwara rolled his eyes. "Everything's lined up for you, from entrance exams to graduation. And then you don't even have the decency to possess the one thing you actually need to become a Hero. Motivation. Becoming one is a goal unto itself for people like you. "
Now confusion was replaced by anger.
"And what would you know of it?"
Generally, talking back to a teacher was frowned upon, but this was so far out of the realm of "generally" that I really didn't care.
"What do I know about it? Kid, I've been there. I've seen how the deck is stacked for people like you and your sister. Everybody in the business knows each other, while us normal people are left to make do with what they've got."
Oh.
So that's what this was about.
"I see. So you're angry because you couldn't make the cut yourself."
Perhaps that wasn't being fair to the man. Perhaps he'd had bad experiences that had led him to this conclusion. But perhaps I wasn't inclined to be fair, after what he'd said and done already.
Fujiwara's nostrils flared and his shoulders tensed as he sprung to his feet, furious. He opened his mouth as if about to say something, but seemed to think better of it at the last moment.
"Get out. We're done here."
I got up from my seat and walked out the door.
-------
"Who the hell does he think he is?!" I fumed to Yui as we walked across the school yard towards the gates
"You seem angry." She noted.
"How can I not be?!" I paced ahead of the shorter girl, my fingers clenching and unclenching. "That was completely unprofessional! How does somebody like that work as a teacher?"
Yui shrugged. "Then make sure he doesn't."
"What?"
"Lodge an official complaint, if he really was that bad. He must already be in hot water, with the way he misses class constantly. Better yet, get your sister to do it."
"That's… I can't ask her to do that." I balked. It was one thing to be frustrated, but it was another to ask Ryuko to… to pressure the school.
"Your choice." Yui shrugged again.
We parted at the schoolgates, and I made a beeline for the train station. The ride was uneventful, mainly spent on my phone avoiding eye contact with strangers. Which unfortunately left me plenty of time to think.
Once the initial anger had cooled, I'd started to go over what had happened. Fujiwara had had a bone to pick with me because of my last name, out of some perceived grudge against Hero families. Regardless of whether or not his position had any merit, he'd just… verbally attacked me out of nowhere. Whilst he was supposed to be acting as teacher and caretaker.
So no, I didn't feel like giving him the benefit of the doubt on the matter.
But he had posited a very good question, in the process.
Why?
Why did I want to become a Hero?
Not in the sense that becoming a Hero was a bad thing. But rather, what were my reasons for becoming a Hero in the first place?
Ever since that day ten years ago, I'd been convinced I wanted to become a Hero. But why?
I knew fully well the answer to that question, but now that I truly thought about it, I wasn't so sure of it's merit.
Ultimately, I had decided to become a Hero because I thought it would be cool. Because Quirks were awesome and Heroes got to use them. Because I enjoyed using my Quirk more than anything.
But wasn't that just kind of… shallow?
Shouldn't you want to become a Hero to help people? Because you want to make the world a better place?
It's not as if I didn't want to do those things. But the original, underlying reason I had decided on this course was simple, selfish, "because it would be fun". But was that enough?
Suddenly I wasn't so sure anymore.
I fidgeted in my seat, uncomfortable.
Sometimes I wished I could just resolve all of my life's issues by being a dragon. Bullies? Dragon. Anxiety? Dragon. Awkward social situations? Dragon.
Just like… fly off into the sunset and abandon the constraints of society. Disappear into the countryside and find some cave to lair in. I wagered I probably could do it.
But I wouldn't do it. I didn't want to leave my family behind.
That, and not having to catch my own food plus internet access.
Well, in any case I wasn't going to figure things out here, I needed more time to think about this.
After disembarking, I still had quite a way to walk until reaching home. It was a good neighbourhood on the outskirts of the city, lots of open space and bordered by a large forest extending towards the countryside.
Our house was decently large, a U-shape with the open side facing toward the forest. White stone walls, brown tiled roof.
I tested the front door, and found it unlocked. As I stepped inside, I heard Mom yell from across the house.
"In the studio!"
Mom's studio-slash-workshop was a large room in the western end of the house, with a large window located on the wall facing the forest. The room itself was dominated by her workbench, mounting a number of latches and clamps that allowed her to fasten whatever she was working on into place. Today it seemed to be a life-sized carving of a brown bear, modeled with incredible detail, right down to fur. Mom's specialty was wood-carving of extreme precision, and apparently her work was fairly famous within the community.
"How was school?" Mom asked as she pulled off her safety goggles and set down the chisel.
"It was fine."
Mom frowned at my response, but didn't press the issue.
"Anyway, I'm going to the forest for a walk." I continued. I needed to clear my head for a bit and think, and there's no better place for that.
"Aren't you going out with Ryuko today?"
"Yeah, but that's only at six."
"And when are you planning on doing homework, young lady? I don't want to see another C from your japanese tests."
I sighed.
"None of that. You need to keep up your grades."
I guess I'm doing homework then. So much for calming down and thinking things over.
For a moment I considered talking to Mom about what had happened today, but decided against it. Mom… had never fully approved of my choice of future career. Oh, she'd never outright forbid it, but she made her opinion known through the little things, the subtle hints and nudges whenever the topic came up. Ever since the funeral, seven years ago, she'd been quite prickly about that sort of stuff.
And right now, I wasn't sure I wanted to hear that.
As soon as I was back in my room I took out my japanese textbook from my backpack, dropped it on the floor and flopped onto the bed.
Japanese and I had a bit of a strained relationship, to put it mildly. I had always been horrid at learning new languages, as far back as I could remember. Finnish had been my native language, and even then grammar and writing had been a bitch to work with. English had only come to me after years upon years of hard work and being exposed to english media on a daily basis. Swedish I'd struggled with so much that I had come to view the entire language with an all-encompassing hatred and refused to have anything to do with out of pure spite.
So japanese had not come to me easily. At all. I got frustrated easily when it comes to things that I'm not good at. It had been slow-going, an endless cycle of glacially slow progress, giving up, and picking up again because the isolation from not being able to understand anything was even worse.
Ryuko had been a huge help, with her endless patience, and with years of immersion I'd managed to get it together; I could speak and understand japanese. I'd occasionally struggle with obscure words, use an odd turn of phrase or be a little slow on the uptake, but I could do it.
But that was only the beginning. Speech can only get you so far in life.
When school began, we started learning writing and reading. And let me tell you, that was the closest thing to hell on earth I'd experienced since firing drills in arctic winter. I think my soul still hasn't thawed out from that one.
At least previously, there had been a common alphabet to work with. Not only did Japanese not have that, it had individual characters for each different word. Instead of twenty-nine letters, there were thousands of kanji, each with different pronunciations and meanings. And then there's the kana, just to add extra confusion into the mix because nothing in life can ever just be easy.
I struggled. I struggled a lot.
But I had one key advantage, namely an abundance of time to devote to the subject, at least most of the time. Things like math, chemistry, physics, those had always come easy as breathing to me, and even if I couldn't possibly remember quite everything from a lifetime ago, with a solid foundation to work with most academic subjects were just a matter of reacquainting myself with the material. Certainly there were the occasional blind spots like post-Quirk history, but that was a fairly small segment overall and if there was one subject I was simply just good at, it was history. All in all, while I still had to put in some work for my grades it wasn't nearly as much as a normal student. This way, I could afford to devote a vastly disproportionate amount of time to studying japanese.
And it worked. My grades in the subject weren't quite perfect, but they were good enough. I was making real progress.
Then, I got my phone for my eighth birthday. For the first time in my new life, I had free, unrestricted access to the internet. I had naturally first taken to finding out everything I could about this new world, and the intervening years since my time.
During that time I had gone and searched for myself, and found nothing. No indication that I had ever existed. Which didn't necessarily mean anything because so much had been lost in the post-Quirk chaos, and simply the passing of years.
But that had brought me into contact with another issue. Japanese I had learned after a great deal of trouble. English, while far more rare in Japan, was still around and exposure was intermittent. By the time english classes had started at school I was undoubtedly a little rusty with the language, but like with other subjects I had a background from which to easily build it back up again. By this point I'd more or less completely forgotten about swedish.
But that still left my first language, finnish. Looking through the internet for traces of my former life, I was suddenly confronted with the fact that I hadn't had the slightest bit of contact with my original native tongue in more than eight years. It's a language obscure enough that you're not going to run into it abroad unless you specifically seek it out, even libraries might not have a single book written in it.
So when I read over the web pages, I realized that I had to actually think about what I was reading. I was forced to frequently pause and wrack my memory for the unfamiliar words, and every few sentences there were even words which I didn't recognize at all which I had to check via a translator app. A couple of them were new words entirely, but for the most part, they were simply ones that had slipped away over eight years of disuse.
Where it had once been as easy as breathing, I now had to work to understand my mother's tongue.
I… hadn't taken that realization very well.
So I'd thrown myself into relearning it, using whatever material was available to me. Obviously I couldn't really ask Mom and Dad to get anything for me without arousing suspicion, so I was mostly limited to whatever I could find for free on the internet. I managed to find a download of the finnish translation of Lord of the Rings, the books having become public domain long ago, but beyond that I relied upon wikipedia, blogs, fanfiction and videos. There was little that I could do about spoken language however, at least until I was much older. Still, after the initial panic, it all started to come back to me.
But the thing was, I was trying to study two languages at the same time. It took away time from my already-busy schedule, and caused no small amount of confusion. More than once, I'd almost handed in homework written in finnish.
My grades had dropped. Mom had been disappointed. Ryuko had been concerned. And I had no explanation to offer to them.
That was where we were at the moment, an ongoing struggle. It wasn't like my grades in japanese were bad, but that's the thing about expectations. Once set, you're going to have a hard time shaking them off.
-------
Hours later, I was walking through the streets of Musutafu, checking occasionally on the navigator app on my phone to make sure I was going in the right direction.
The restaurant was situated right in the middle of the city, with its very own building. It was catered specifically to celebrities, including Pro-Heroes, who wanted a bit of privacy for themselves. The lowermost floor served as a lobby, while the upper ones housed the actual dining areas.
Despite the Tatsuma family name being fairly well known we'd never needed to use something like this before, but ever since Ryuko made it to the Top Ten last year it'd suddenly become impossible to go anywhere with her without being instantly recognized. I counted my blessings that my fame by association wasn't strong enough to receive face recognition on the street. Aside from eye and hair colour, my sister and I looked nothing alike.
I walked into the lobby, quickly looking around the room for Ryuko, but it seemed like she wasn't there yet. I took out my phone and tapped the screen. No missed calls or messages and the time was 17:55, so I was five minutes early.
Ryuko had a bad habit of being late for everything, because of how busy she was with work. Establishing her own Pro-Hero Agency at the age of twenty-one was no small feat, and after placing on the Top Ten Hero Rankings she'd only kicked her workaholism into an overdrive.
There was a waiting area with a couple of benches and a small table laden with a collection of fashion magazines and comic books located to the side of the lobby. With a sigh I flopped down and grabbed one at random. It turned out to be the latest issue of Superman.
The Superhero genre had gone through its own weird little metamorphosis with the appearance of Quirks. Obviously superpowers had ceased to be fantasy, but at the same time, they were also made so much more mainstream. With strict laws on Quirk usage and how few people actually made the cut to become Pro-Heroes, a market for escapist fantasies was born.
Of course, the actual content had changed as well. Real-life Heroes were merchandised to hell and back, which obviously included comic books, cartoons, movies, action figures, toys, the works. Fictional characters suddenly had to compete with them for the same niches, in addition to new inventions. Moreover, the message had also undergone an overall shift, mainly to reflect modern society. Gone were vigilantes who took the law in their own hands like Batman, Daredevil, Spider-Man and Punisher, replaced by licensed heroes who worked with the law enforcement.
Origin stories had also been altered, largely to remove people gaining superpowers by accident or anything like it. No more having a lightning bolt strike a chemistry set to give you amazing abilities, mainly just Quirks and the occasional "I am actually an alien/supernatural being". The unpowered superhero types had also all but disappeared.
Now, I have no evidence to support it, but the cynicist in me tells me that the reason for that is because "potentially deadly accidents can give you superpowers" or "you should go out and punch supervillains even if you don't have powers" aren't really the kind of messages you want to be airing in a society in which Quirkless kids struggle with feelings of inferiority on a daily basis.
...God, that's depressing to think about.
I put away the comic and checked my phone again. 18:15, no new messages. Ryuko would've sent a message if she was going to take much longer, so she should be here any moment. Or it was a real emergency.
Sure enough, just as I was thinking about, my sister came in through the front door, with that very careful style of walking as fast as humanly possible while not outwardly appearing to be in a hurry. Because God forbid the Number Ten Hero hurry for anything less than lives at stake.
I mean, I got it.
She was a public figure now. She had to think about the effect she could have on the wider society just by the way she acted. If she was hurrying, people might panic. But still.
Ryuko had immediately drawn the attention of several patrons, but she ignored the onlookers and made her way through the lobby, greeting me with a warm smile as she approached.
"You're late."
"I'm sorry." She responded, rubbing the back of her neck. "There was a holdup at the agency. You know how it is."
"I guess."
Ryuko frowned, but didn't say anything.
It had to be said, the restaurant took its promise of privacy seriously. Instead of having a central dining area, the upper floors of the building were split into individual rooms, where there was no possibility of being eavesdropped or bothered.
After we checked in at the front desk a waiter took us to the one Ryuko had reserved, a small room on the third floor. It was very simplistically adorned, but nice enough. I also noticed that the heating in the room had been turned up, which must've been something Ryuko had asked the restaurant to set up beforehand. I guess there are some perks to her fame.
"Here we go." The waiter said with a slight bow. "I trust everything is to your liking?"
"It is wonderful, thank you." Ryuko replied.
"Then I shall leave you to it. Please, once you have chosen your order, use the intercom and one of us will be there."
As soon as the door closed behind him, Ryuko's whole demeanour changed. The ever present tension in her shoulders loosened as she swept me into a hug, lifting me clear off the ground. After my last growth spurt I was of equal height with her, but she had years of physical training to fall back on. I returned the hug awkwardly and eventually she relented, putting me back down on the ground.
"Look, I'm really sorry about being late."
Does that mean you're going to stop doing it?
That was what I wanted to say. But it wouldn't have been fair to Ryuko. Her job was to save lives. What was an inconvenience to me compared to that?
"Alright." I eventually settled on a quiet reply.
"So! Let's get some food!"
She took a seat and grabbed one of the menus from the table, handing me the other one as I sat down opposite to her.
Wow. These were some seriously expensive meals. I knew Ryuko's agency was doing well, but still...
"What are you thinking?" Ryuko interrupted my thoughts.
"A hamburger."
She put down her menu just to look at me in sheer disbelief.
"I take you to the best restaurant in the city and you want a hamburger?"
"Have you or have you not known me my whole life? You took me out to eat, what did you expect me to pick?"
She looked away in disgust, and I rolled my eyes. I would sooner die a second time than eat kale soup or whatever else hipster food she was having.
Yes, kale had apparently crawled back from it's grave for another go just to haunt me, it was apparently now "in" again.
Ryuko called the waiter via the wall-mounted intercom, and did her best not to frown as I ordered the biggest, greasiest, bacon- and cheese-filled hamburger they had on the menu, plus a bowl of french fries with sauce and bacon chips. She herself ordered lobsters alongside some sort of fruit salad appetizer.
"So, how's flight practice been?" Ryuko questioned after the waiter left for the kitchen. "I heard you got to fly free for the first time last week."
"Yeah."
Ryuko gave me a look.
"It was fine."
"I know for a fact you can use more adjectives than fine, Ryuuzaki."
I sighed and took a deep breath. If Ryuko wanted me to be descriptive, then might as well go all in.
"Flying under your own power is the best thing imaginable. All the worries, all the drama and all the things that seem so big down here, from up there they're just... nothing. Insignificant. Up there, it feels like you can do anything. It feels like you're free, for the first time in your life. On the ground you feel clumsy and there's just so much everything, everywhere. You can barely see ten feet in front of you because there's always something in the way, and you never know what might be hiding around a corner. Everything is so small and tight and cluttered and confined."
I leaned back in my chair, thinking back to that moment of first taking flight with my own wings under the real sky, free of safety harnesses and obstructions.
"Up there, it's just me and the skies. I can see for dozens of kilometers in every direction. I feel free, in a way that nothing on earth can match. I feel untouchable. I feel safe. I feel… like I'm at home. If anything, after that being on the ground level again is just a disappointment."
I looked at Ryuko.
"Is that enough adjectives for you?"
She ignored the barb, instead smiling brightly.
"I'm happy for you. I never took to flight like that, but I'm glad you've found it enjoyable."
"Wait, how can you not like flying?"
"Eh, it's alright. But there are better things."
"That's it, you're not my sister anymore."
Ryuko was about to reply, but there was a knock on the door as the waiter arrived with our food, and the argument was immediately forgotten in favour of greasy goodness.
When Ryuko called this the best restaurant in the city, she wasn't kidding. The hamburger buns were freshly baked, warm and crisp. Between them were three patties and a veritable mountain of bacon, cheese, lettuce and sauce. I began devouring it at a rapid pace.
The thing about having sharp teeth was that they looked cool, but getting used to eating with them instead of regular incisors had been a challenge, at first. Biting into my tongue was an ever-present threat, and instead of cutting out a chunk I had to tear it out unless it was something really soft. And stuff tended to get stuck on them very easily. All in all I probably would've preferred normal teeth.
But you work with what you've got. And they did look cool.
"Anything else happen recently?" Ryuko started the conversation again. "You seem a little glum, today."
Should've known that she'd notice. I never could keep a secret from her, aside from the big one.
"Well, there was one thing."
Ryuko gestured for me to elaborate.
"I guess… I've just been thinking about the future."
"What about it?"
"It's just… we had… What do you call it? Career discussion? At school. And… it got me thinking about whether I should really become a Hero."
"What kind of career discussion would make you think that?" Ryuko squinted, her eyes suddenly hard.
"It was nothing."
"Clearly it wasn't nothing, if it got you doubting your childhood dream."
I winced. "The teacher… said some things."
"What kind of things, Ryuuzaki?" Ryuko pressed.
"He was being a kind of a jerk, and said some stuff about Hero families and stuff. It doesn't really matter. It's just… He asked me why I wanted to become a Hero." I paused. "I know I've said I wanted to be one since when I was little, but I guess it's just... I decided to be a Hero because it'd be fun. Because I'd get to use my Quirk and be a dragon and that's what I love doing. But now it just seems a little… childish, don't you think? Not something that should motivate a Hero."
"Of all the-" Ryuko began to respond, then paused mid-sentence and seemed to reconsider, and started again.
"Ryuuzaki. Do you really think that nobody else does that? That you're the exception, for wanting to do it because you think you would enjoy it?"
I didn't respond, so she continued.
"Surely others in your class also want to become Heroes? Do you… never talk about it? Why they want to do it?"
Not really? I barely talked to people other than Yui at school, and we didn't talk about things like that.
"Look." Reading the answer from my face, Ryuko went on. "The idea that you're only allowed to become a Hero if you're some perfect exemplar of justice, that you should never enjoy it, is not only an impossible standard to meet, it is not healthy. No functional human being is like that."
Ryuko paused, stopping for a moment to think before continuing.
"Let me rephrase this. Why do you think I originally decided to become a Hero?"
"I… don't know. You've never talked about it."
"I'm going to tell you a story. About what happened before you were born. I know you've figured out more about what happened than Mom thinks you have, but I want you to hear it first-hand."
I nodded, with a bit of trepidation.
"It… It was, well, rough, after Ryuunosuke kicked her out and I was born. There's just no way to put it gently. Mom had to drop out of school and find a minimum wage job. We lived paycheck to paycheck. She tried her best, she really did, but coming from the rich Tatsuma household to living in a tiny apartment in the worst part of the city was hard on her too. She had no idea how to budget things. Sometimes she'd buy things even I knew back then we couldn't afford, and then we had to live on oatmeal and rice for the next two weeks."
That was… not something I'd thought about. I had had clues of the overall picture, but to hear about what it must've been like...
"She took up smoking to deal with all of it, at first every now and then, but eventually she was doing a pack every day. You know, because she breathes out smoke when she gets angry, so it wasn't bad for her lungs as it otherwise would have been. But the addiction and all the other issues remained. Our apartment smelled of cigarettes every day."
She laid her hands on her lap, clearly frustrated.
"I- I can't blame her for it, she'd been cast out of the only life she'd known, even younger than I am now. But after it's all said and done, even if I can't resent her for it, I… I'd be lying if I said I'd never thought about the financial side of things when I decided to become a Pro-Hero. All of this-"
Ryuko gestured vaguely around us.
"Being able to afford to eat outside in a fancy restaurant. Getting new clothes just because I liked them, not because the last ones were too small or too worn to wear. Buying jewelry because I thought it was pretty. All the things that I couldn't do, growing up."
She seemed a little bit melancholic as she spoke, and I digested this information. Then she perked up a little, continuing on.
"Of course, things did get better. When I was six, Mom met Dad, and he joined the family. It was the best thing to ever happen to us. And not because of financial stability, but because of what it meant for Mom. It was like she was a new person. She was happy again, and she even quit smoking altogether. They waited a long while before having you, you know. Mom wanted everything to be just perfect for your childhood, the way mine wasn't. I think that's why she went so far overboard in the other direction, trying to give you the most normal childhood imaginable."
She sighed.
"But to get back on track, greed is pretty much the definition of selfishness. It's not my only reason for starting down the path to becoming a Pro-Hero, but it has been a major influence every step of the way. It's part of me."
She looked up again, folding her fingers together.
"So would you say that makes me a bad Hero?"
"Of course not." I hastened to reply. "But it's not the same-"
"But it is." Ryuko said, grasping my hand by the wrist, her expression dead-serious. "I wanted to become a Hero for the money. You want to become a Hero because you think you would enjoy it. That is not a bad thing. Anybody who embarks on a career should enjoy what they do. In the other direction lies burnout and depression. I've seen and known people who couldn't handle the intensity of training to become a Pro-Hero, while we've had to physically drag you away from training. Used right, that can be a source of strength, not a flaw."
She rubbed her eyes.
"Nobody's perfect. You'd be hard-pressed to find a Pro-Hero without a shred of selfishness in them. They're human."
"But what about- about people like Ryuo? He became a Hero for selfish reasons, didn't he?"
"That's true. Our uncle became a Hero because it was expected of him, to further the prestige of the family. But tell me, can you imagine him ever doing this? Questioning his own motivations?"
Ryuko's expression darkened, a bit of venom entering into her voice.
"No, Ryuo Tatsuma is the kind of person who would follow his convictions without a moment of hesitation all the way to the end, even if that end is verbally assaulting a five-year old who had done nothing to him." She said, putting a hand on my shoulder. "So I say that simply by asking these questions, you are already more of a Hero than he ever will be. I'm not saying that you're wrong to be concerned, because without a doubt, there are Pro-Heroes who take it too far. They have allowed their vices to rule them, more concerned with fame, riches or ambition than they are with actually saving people. The key is in moderation."
Ryuko sighed.
"Self-awareness can be an incredibly useful trait. But, 'Zaki, sometimes you take that way too far and twist over into crippling yourself with self-doubt. You're thirteen. You have your whole life ahead of you, to figure things out. Nobody's expecting you to be a Hero yet. That's what you go to Hero School for, dummy."
She poked me in the forehead.
"As long as it isn't your only reason for becoming a Hero, and you don't allow it to interfere with it, there is nothing wrong with having a selfish reason to become a Hero. Damn near everyone does. The one and only thing that matters is if you have the potential to become a Hero, and a willingness to give everything you have towards that goal. The first you have in spades, and I know you can muster the second if this is the path you want to take. So the only question that's really worth asking, is if you want to become a Hero. Nothing else. If you want to, you can. If you don't want to, then don't."
The silence stretched on.
Finally I swallowed, opened my mouth, then closed it again before finally settling on an answer.
"I… I'll think about it."
"And that's okay. You've still got two whole years until the entrance exams, and besides, there are adult courses for Heroes. I talked to Edgeshot at the Hero Rankings gala, did you know that he was twenty-three when he decided to become a Pro-Hero?
Huh. That's actually something I'd never considered.
"Thanks. For… all of this. Putting up with me."
"That's what big sisters are for."